The Constitution is the Precedent

A mishmash of thoughts today, from a smorgasbord of sources, all related to a central theme - the underappreciated, and hence often overlooked, impact of Supreme Court justices.

From Sen Jim DeMint (R. - South Carolina) (link here):

When a president and a Congress collude to pass and sign into law unconstitutional power grabs, bailouts and takeovers there is only one immediate backstop: the Supreme Court. Every branch of government has an obligation to preserve, defend and uphold the Constitution, and if the legislative and executive branches overstep their boundaries, the judicial branch can stop them.

On the other hand, if the Supreme Court doesn't say "no" when the other two branches go too far, there is no tax that can't be levied, no mandate that can't be imposed, no regulation that can't be instituted and no industry that can't be taken over. The only recourse Americans have is to remove and replace members of Congress and the president slowly through the election process. But when Supreme Court judges, who are unelected and given lifetime appointments, refuse to say "no" when the Constitution says they should, it can take much longer to undo the damage.

Got that? Supreme Court appointments are for life. There's no do-overs. That's why it is so very crucial to ensure that appointees are qualified, reasonable, and impartial. Trying to fill some sort of quota (so many blacks, so many hispanics, so many women, so many fill-in-the-blanks) is not the way to do it. Just look at the mess our affirmative-action president has got us into.

DeMint painted the picture with broad strokes. The next two selections provide a more focused perspective on two topics near and dear to me: the idea that legal decisions of foreign justices can be used as guides by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Second Amendment.

For the former, we turn to Phyllis Schlafly, lawyer, and political analyst (link here).

During Kagan's confirmation hearing for solicitor general, Sen. Arlen Specter asked her views on using foreign or international law or decisions to interpret our Constitution and laws. She wrote in reply that she approves using "reasonable foreign law arguments." Au contraire. The U.S. Constitution says our judges "shall be bound" by "the Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof."

Most reasonable people would agree that U.S. law should be guided by the U.S. Constitution, not something the Italians or the English or, God help us, the French have dreamed up. Nothing against those folks, but they have different cultures, different histories, and different traditions than we do. One of the reasons for the ascendancy to greatness of this nation is it's legal framework: loose enough to allow individuals to succeed while at the same time protecting a core of fundamental liberties. Using foreign laws to govern U.S. citizens would be like wearing someone else's shoes: ill fitting, potentially harmful, and just downright icky.

As for the Second Amendment, John Lott, economics professor, author, and commentator, links Kagan with Sotomayor (the self-proclaimed "wise Latina") (link here): 

Obama's first Supreme Court pick, Sonia Sotomayor, looked no better. For instance, in one of her decisions as an appeals court judge, she argued that the Second Amendment would not block any gun-control laws as long as the politicians passing the laws thought the weapon was "designed primarily as a weapon and has no purpose other than to maim or, in some instances, kill."  

In other words, as long as politicians think that they are doing the right thing, even if totally misguided, these good intentions trump any individual right to bear arms.

With an interpretation like the one offered by Justice Sotomayor, the Supreme Court would never have struck down Washington, D.C.’s gun ban, let alone any other gun-control law.

Unfortunately, there is no easy quick-fix: every place in the world that has tried a gun ban -- not just Chicago and Washington, D.C. -- has seen an increase in murder rates.  

But despite her past decisions, Sotomayor clearly promised the Senate Judiciary Committee that as a Supreme Court justice she would follow Heller and accept its decision that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to own guns for self-defense. Here's this example from her 2009 confirmation hearing:

Senator Patrick Leahy: “. . . you, in fact, recognized the Supreme Court decided in ‘Heller’ that the personal right to bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution against federal law restrictions. Is that correct?"

Sotomayor: "It is."

Yet, in the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to strike down the Chicago handgun ban, Sotomayor apparently completely forgot her promise last year.

"I can find nothing in the Second Amendment’s text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as 'fundamental' insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes."

Breyer’s dissent provides a clear warning: the Supreme Court is just one vote away from totally reversing “Heller” and “McDonald” and declaring that the government can completely ban gun ownership.

With Kagan on the Supreme Court, there will continue to be four (out of nine justices) who support the government’s decision to completely ban gun ownership.

No Senator can seriously claim that he strongly supports gun ownership and still vote for Kagan’s confirmation.

Kagan, like Sotomayor, is just another lying liberal whose false words are betrayed by their hypocritical actions once they rise to a position of power (see Obama, Barack Hussein).

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll close with an image lifted from gottagetdrunkfirst . It's something that's for sure on my to-do list...